


Thine Own Self

by trill_gutterbug



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abortion, Abusive Relationship, Alpha!Jack, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Coerced Abortion, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, HYDRA Trash Party, In Which Trill Continues to Name Fics after Star Trek Episodes Because Why the Eff Not, M/M, Mpreg, Omega!Brock, Rough Sex, Sexist and Homophobic Language, Unhealthy Power Dynamics, Unnegotiated Kink, Unsafe Sex, Watersports, brock rumlow's fragile masculinity, these two assholes deserve each other lbr here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:09:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6644446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brock has never let anyone get at him during a heat. Not once. </p><p>(Or: why condoms are a good idea.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thine Own Self

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Твой собственный](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7752586) by [Saysly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saysly/pseuds/Saysly)



> Betaed by the perfect and amazing and charming and wonderful chalk-baphomet, whom I love deeply, regardless of their sketch af musical tastes.
> 
> Check out the end notes for a very spoilery explanation of all the potentially disturbing themes of this fic.

Brock has never let anyone get at him during a heat. Not once.  

He had his first at twelve, and punched Delia Locke in the face when she cornered him on his front porch and tried to kiss him, all alpha strength and spicy pheromones. She was seventeen and had a boyfriend, and punched him back before stomping away. Brock didn’t tell his dad.

Brock did tell his dad a highly-edited version of why Jerry Solkowski had gone home crying later the same day, though, and his dad had laughed and slapped his shoulder and said, “Good man. Just because you’re an omega doesn’t mean you have to be a fag.”

What Brock hadn’t told his dad was that Jerry had been polite about it, brought him a candy bar and a smile, held his hand a little and scented up the side of Brock’s neck in a way that made Brock’s knees weak and the back of his pants wet. He didn’t mention how Jerry had kissed him really slow and thorough for at least ten minutes before Brock had panicked, kneed him in the balls, and fled. That hadn’t seemed appropriate to share.

But it had been the start of a trend, one that’s been going on for thirty-odd years. It’s become old hat at this point, locking himself in his apartment for three long days with plenty of water and protein bars and the tv on loud in the background so his neighbours won’t hear the noises he makes with his own fist up his ass. It’s not _good_ , but it’s not supposed to be good. Nature has been fucking people over since time immemorial with allergies and wisdom teeth and burst appendixes; he can handle a little horniness for a couple days every few months. He’s used to it.

So when Jack starts banging on his door the evening of the first day, hard enough to be heard over a Sons of Anarchy rerun and through the pillow Brock’s face-down in, he has no intention of answering. He lets Jack hammer at the door for a solid minute, a distinctive knock performed with the side of one ham-sized fist, before Brock loses his cool and shouts, “Go the fuck away!”

“Open the door,” Jack says.

“Fuck off!”

From the other side of the room, Brock’s neighbour starts banging on her own wall. She’s yelled at him for having music too loud before, and he knows she’ll call the cops for stupid shit like ‘domestic disturbances.’

“Chrissakes,” Brock groans into the pillow. It had taken him ages to get comfortable, chest-down, ass-up on the couch with his arms bent underneath so he could hook two fingers in his ass and shallowly fuck his other fist. It’s the only position that keeps his insides feeling even a little stable and doesn’t give him a killer charley horse. “This ain’t the time, Jack!” he yells. “I’m taking the weekend.”

“Open the fucking door.” It sounds like Jack’s pressed right up against it, snarling at the jamb. “I’ll break it down, Brock.”

The makes Brock lift his head. He’s seen Jack shoulder through doors like they’re made of cardboard, and even with all the locks Brock installed when he first moved in, this apartment is still a prefab dollhouse in comparison to what they’ve been trained to dismantle in the field.

“Fuck,” Brock hisses. “Fucking shit hell Christ motherfucking cunt god _damnit_.” He pulls his fingers out of his ass and wipes them on the blanket under him. It feels awful, the worst kind of empty, his ass wringing down on nothing and his cock jerking in his hand. He groans, pitiful shading into anger, and slides slowly off the couch. His legs barely work, thighs shaking. He has to push himself upright against the coffee table, breaking out in a cold sweat. The insides of his legs and his asscheeks are slick. They make the nastiest sound when he moves.

Hell if he’s answering the door naked, so he drags the blanket off the couch and wraps it around himself. The door feels a hundred miles away, but he makes it. Barely. He ends up collapsed against it, panting and chewing his tongue, joints shaking.

“What do you want, Jack?” He’s distantly appalled by how exhausted he sounds.

“Let me the fuck in,” Jack growls, definitely right up against the jamb, the timbre of his voice vibrating all the way down Brock’s spine. If Brock turned his head just a bit, their mouths would probably be separated by nothing but two inches of pressboard. God, the taste of Jack’s mouth right now, cigarettes and gum, the way he kisses like he wants to hurt Brock’s tonsils. The thought of it makes Brock’s teeth chatter, sends a thrill through his belly.

“Now’s, uh… not the best time,” he manages.

“Let me in so I can shove my cock up your desperate asshole, you stupid piece of shit.”

It takes Brock aback, in the small part of his brain that hasn’t overloaded at the word ‘cock.’ He nearly slides down the door, balance overridden by a sudden burst of white noise and light through his head. He lifts one hand and fumbles at the chain lock, and the deadbolt, and the other deadbolt. He doesn’t know if he’s moving them right, too disoriented to look, numb-fingered, but the door shoves open a second later and Jack lunges inside, catches him before he hits the floor.

“Hey--” Brock protests, and that’s the last thing he says because then the smell hits him like a freight train. It’s sharp and thick, a wall of it that envelops him completely, knocks him flat. Strong, salty alpha-- armpits and groin in the locker room, the dip of Jack’s throat after sex, fresh sweat three miles into a six mile run. Cranked up to eleven and shot directly into Brock’s gut, a nuclear bomb of crippling lust.

“Gotcha,” Jack says, pulling Brock upright and into him. The blanket drops, but Brock doesn’t care. He puts his arms around Jack’s neck and gasps into the hot throbbing pulse under Jack’s jaw, rubs his face in it. He registers distantly when Jack kicks the door shut, not bothering to reset any of the locks, and picks him up like he weighs nothing. The couch is under him a second later, Jack dropping him on it and folding down on top of him in the same motion.

He’s huge over Brock, hands working between them to yank his belt off, his pants open. He’s furnace-hot, reeking and overwhelming, muscled like a bull and twice as terrifying.

“Please, shit--” Brock begs, finding his voice. He rips his nails down Jack’s back, tears at the hem of his t-shirt. “Fuck you, fuck you, put it in me-- I want it-- fuck, _please_ \--”

His legs are open around Jack’s and Jack pins him flat with one hand spanning his hips, lifting up to peel down his own jeans. “Hold the fuck still,” he snarls. When Brock hitches up after him anyway, he slaps the inside of Brock’s thigh. It hurts, the open palm of his hand like that, but Brock doesn’t have time to regroup, because Jack gets his jeans off and his boxers down below his ass, and then there’s his cock between them, big and solid and already starting to swell at the base.

Brock whines, reaching for it, mouth flush with saliva, but Jack ignores him and grabs the backs of his thighs, yanking them up. “Quiet,” Jack says. He folds Brock nearly in half and sinks his dick inside.

It’s the best thing Brock’s ever felt, better than the sex they usually have, better than fucking women, better than fucking men, better than fucking anyone. It makes him want to scream, so he does. Jack snaps, “For chrissakes,” and kisses him. It’s a stretch, Brock’s legs pinned and Jack’s whole weight on top of them, Jack’s cock getting deeper and deeper by the second. Brock’s wet like he’s never been before, his ass melting open to let Jack in, clutching at the thickness of him.

He swears and sobs into Jack’s mouth, half because of the press of Jack’s cock and half because of the way Jack’s biting at him, chewing him open. It makes him feel raw, shaken to his core. Between them, his cock throbs and drools and the head catches at Jack’s t-shirt. “Come on, fuck me,” Brock slurs, and Jack does.

A while later, Brock is on his belly with his hips hitched in the air, Jack holding him down with one hand on the back of his neck. Brock’s sobbing into the damp pillow, his insides wrecked by the thick rocking of Jack’s cock. He’s come twice and is on his way to another. The rim of his ass is starting to get stretched by the swell of Jack’s knot, a sharp tug on every withdrawal, and it’s one of those bright sparks of pain that makes Brock start thinking with one percent of his brain again.

“Shit,” he gasps, “wait, wait. Jack--”

“Shut _up_ ,” Jack pants, digging his fingers hard into the base of Brock’s skull.

“Condom,” Brock manages. He’s got some in the bedroom, his own. They’d probably fit.

Jack laughs. It’s mean, low. He leans in so the length of his chest is pressed along Brock’s back and his cock roots even deeper, catching on a hundred sensitive swollen spots and making Brock’s eyes roll back in his skull.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack says. His pelvis smacks Brock’s ass with a sloppy noise, once, twice. It’s too good, too much. It feels like having sandpaper taken to the soles of his feet. “We’ll deal with it later.”

And then Brock doesn’t care anymore, because Jack nuzzles into the side of his throat, searching, and bites him. It hurts, and it makes fireworks explode down Brock’s spine. Jack grinds his teeth, growling, and drives his hips forward until Brock comes for the third time with his cock rubbed raw against the couch cushions and his ass locked up tight with Jack’s cock, filling him with spunk.

~*~

They fuck for three days.

On the second, they make it into the bedroom, because all the cushions have come off the couch and one is shredded. On the third, Jack gets out of bed long enough to bring Brock a protein bar and an apple, and eat a bowl of cereal standing up at the counter. Brock can see him through the open bedroom door, naked and taking up half the little kitchen, shoveling spoonfuls into his mouth mechanically. The sight of Jack’s half-hard cock against his thigh, still slick from Brock’s ass, makes him bury his face in the duvet and groan.

Jack looks up, says, “Wait,” like Brock’s a whiny chihuahua. He doesn’t hurry his eating, but he watches Brock until he finishes and drops the bowl in the sink.

By the time Jack stalks back into the bedroom, Brock’s already rolling over, lifting his ass, winding his fingers in the sheets. Jack kneels up behind him, dipping the mattress. The smell of him is all over the bed, all over the apartment, but the fresh waft of it makes Brock’s belly flip. He waits for Jack to touch him, spread him open and get his dick back in, but nothing happens.

He waits and waits, breath getting shorter by the second, until finally he cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. Jack hits him then, a full-armed swing across the ass, and Brock yelps, jerking away. It drives his hard cock into the bed, but Jack pins him before he can curl up around the pain of it, one hand planted in the small of Brock’s back.

“You like it,” Jack says. It’s not a question, but he’s guiding his cock back into the open hungriness of Brock’s ass, and Brock gasps, “Yes, yes, I like it, yes,” into the sheets.

“Feel all that come in you?” He’s fucked Brock so long and so thoroughly, and even though he’s only come a couple of times, Brock’s ass is a mess of jizz. It’s all over the bed and down the backs of his thighs, but it’s especially up in his guts where he’s starving for it, sating himself on it.

“Uh huh,” says Brock, hardly intelligible.

“Baby,” Jack croons, leaning down over Brock’s back, nuzzling into the nape of his neck. He kisses the spot where the bite is still raw, worries it with his teeth. “Baby, you want to have my babies?”

And Brock, because he’s sex-drunk and in love and a fucking idiot, says, “Yes, god, please, yes, Jack--”

~*~

In the morning, Brock lies very still for a very long time. He’s sore all the way through, wrecked. His limbs are gelatin. Beside him, sprawled naked on the bare mattress with one leg dangling over the edge and an arm crooked behind his head, Jack is smoking a cigarette. Brock wants to say something, because this is a non-smoking apartment, but he can’t muster the energy.

Jack looks sideways at him after a while, takes a slow drag of the cigarette, and raises an eyebrow. “Feel okay?” he asks, exhaling smoke.

Brock manages a nod. It hurts his head. He’s dehydrated.

“First time?”

The tone, as much as the words themselves, makes Brock’s hackles rise. Gooseflesh prickles the sore throb of the bite Jack gave him. “Fuck you,” Brock says, although it comes out garbled with his mouth pressed into the bed.

Jack smirks at him. “Don’t mean anything by it.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Just a fact.”

Brock is quiet for a while, thinking about the wrung-out tingle in his ass and how hungry he is. He says, “How did you know? That I was in…” He doesn’t want to say ‘heat,’ he hates the sound of it.

Jack rolls his eyes. He drags on the cigarette a final time and takes it out of his mouth. “Because I’m not a fuckin’ idiot, Brock.” He leans over and, neat as anything, puts out the cigarette on Brock’s bare arm. It’s so shocking, so unexpected, that it takes a second for Brock to react.

“What the fuck, asshole!” he yelps, lurching back and grabbing at the sear of pain. It’s barely anything, just a red mark smeared with ash, but it hurts like a hot damn.

“Don’t be a fucking pussy.” Jack flicks the butt away across the bedroom. “Come here.” He pats his thigh, like Brock’s a dog.

“Fuck you,” Brock growls. He sits up, but doesn’t get much farther than that before Jack grabs him by one wrist and drags him down. He struggles, but not nearly as much as he could. Jack reaches to take him around the back of the neck, hand tight over the bite. Brock’s spine turns to paste and he curls down against Jack’s side, burying his face in the hard bend of Jack’s hip.

“That’s right,” Jack murmurs, squeezing Brock’s neck. It makes the bite throb and go warm. “Relax.”

“Jack--” It comes out like a whimper. “Jack,” he tries again. “I have to get up. I need pills.”

Jack chuckles. His hand slips away from Brock’s neck and rubs down his spine, hard and good. “No, you don’t. You’re the spunky bitch who said you wanted my babies.”

That makes Brock blink, stunned. He remembers saying it, sure, vaguely. But that was-- that was the idiot heat talking. No one takes that shit seriously. People say dumb garbage when they’re getting fucked all the time.

“Well, I don’t,” he mutters after a minute, lame. “Don’t want anyone’s babies, especially not yours.”

Jack chuckles like he’s honestly amused by that. “Really?” His voice gets a little lower, raspy. “You don’t want to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen? Cookin’ me dinner when I get home from working all day, feel ‘em kick when I sing to your belly at night?” His hand drifts around from Brock’s back and rubs at the firm musculature low on Brock’s flat stomach. “You don’t want to get all swollen up tight in here? Put my cock up you and get you all messy inside every day because it wouldn’t matter, anyway?” He slides his hand up to tug Brock’s nipple. “You don’t want your tits fat so I can suck on ‘em?”

Brock opens his mouth to say _Hell no, asshole_ , but nothing comes out. He feels oddly short of breath. Jack rolls his nipple, pinching it almost idly, and it sends a little thrill through the depths of Brock’s belly, into the base of his cock. _You’re a fucking pervert_ , he wants to say. _Don’t act out your nasty little fantasies on me_. But his throat’s too dry for it.

Then Jack laughs. He squeezes Brock’s nipple hard enough to hurt for real, and lets go. “I’m fucking with you.” He leans down, the curve of his side hot and sticky against Brock’s face, and kisses the top of Brock’s head. “You’d be a terrible mom. And we don’t want you losing your girlish figure, do we?”

Brock blows out a breath. He chuckles shakily. “Asshole,” he says, muffled into Jack’s hip.

Jack chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. It’s too late for pills anyway, it’s been more than forty-eight hours.”

Brock hadn’t thought of that. He thinks he should feel panic, a bolt of frantic adrenaline, but he doesn’t. He’s too tired to care.

“We’ll take care of it later,” Jack says. He pets the sore muscles in Brock’s back, scratches the sweaty length of Brock’s spine. “It’s not a big deal.”

~*~

It’s not a big deal. It’s not. Not that day, or the next, or the one after that, when Brock finishes a seventeen hour shift and drags himself home to sleep for six hours before getting up to deal with a shitstorm in Azerbaijan. It’s a long flight, but he’s awake the whole time, prepping the team and skimming intel and getting to know the new miniaturized drones SHIELD tech handed them on the way out the door.

“Like we don’t have enough shit to do without field-testing UAVs,” Jack grumbles from Brock’s left, turning one of the little drones over in his hands.

Brock grunts agreement. He doesn’t have a clue what to do with these things beyond what the instruction manual says. Jack, at least, has an aptitude for fiddly electronic shit, although he doesn’t seem particularly interested now; he keeps giving Brock these looks, smirks really, that set all the hair on Brock’s neck on end. Twice now, he’s slid his hand over the small of Brock’s back, under the edge of the flak vest Brock has yet to velcro shut. He’s sat with one thigh pressed against Brock’s for the past three hours, and sometimes he lifts his chin to scratch at the stubble shadowing his jaw and Brock can see a hickey still dark purple next to his adam’s apple.

It’s a good thing Hydra beat competence into him and weak will out of him at a young age, or Brock would be in no fit state to handle firearms at all, much less parachute out of a plane over a forest in the middle of December. Even then, he nearly loses it when Jack partners up with him to check chutes before the drop and slides both hands around Brock’s waist under the pretence of tightening straps. It’s not an appropriate touch; it’s barely a friendly one. It’s possessive, is what it is, Jack’s thumbs on either side of Brock’s navel through all the layers of gear, the heels of his palms pressing Brock’s hipbones. “Feels a little snug,” he says.

Brock looks up sharply, but Jack is intent on tugging buckles into place, brow furrowed, and doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah, well,” Brock says under his breath, so only Jack can hear. “Whose fault is that?”

That gets an almost-smile, Jack glancing at him and yanking one strap painfully tight for a half-second. “Not mine, you cockhungry skank,” Jack says, and lifts his hand to tap the mic in his ear. “Testing,” he says.

There isn’t even a second of hesitation before the rest of the team comes back, their voices echoing in the plane’s cabin and Brock’s inner ear. Brock flushes so hot it pounds his temples. STRIKE is goddamn professional, he’ll give them that. He clears his throat, loud, and barks out jump-order. After that, it’s all dark and cold and wind and snow, and Brock forgets about everything that isn’t his job and not getting killed.

~*~

He forgets for another three days after getting back Stateside, too distracted by cleanup and the ensuing bureaucratic smackdown from the SHIELD half of his superior officers. It’s never fun, having a strip taken off him in one office and getting a pat on the back in another. Once he’s clocked out, he wants to go home and sleep for a year, but Jack catches up with him halfway to the parking garage.

“Come home with me,” Jack says, falling in next to him.

Brock snorts. He’s exhausted, and he managed to pull a muscle in his thigh fifteen minutes before evac. It’s everything he can do not to limp with every step. “No. I don’t have time to entertain you.”

“It wasn’t actually a question.”

Brock look sideways at him. Jack meets his eyes steadily. After a second, Brock shrugs. “Got beer?”

Jack gives a mock-pitying shake of the head. “In your condition?”

Brock frowns, puzzled for a long second, and then it hits him. It’s like a cold glass of water to the face, the realisation. It takes him a beat to force a grin and a laugh. “Yeah, right. Like having half your genes wouldn’t be shitty enough for a kid.”

Jack grins, and puts a hand on Brock’s elbow to steer him left into the garage instead of right.

“My truck’s--” Brock tries to pull away, but Jack digs his fingers in and says, “I’ll drive.”

“Uh.” Brock looks halfway down the aisle at his truck, where his spare clothes and his phone charger and his two-six of rye and his energy drinks are stashed. “Okay,” he says. “Sure, why not.”

Jack’s got a bigger truck than Brock. It shouldn’t annoy him, but it does.

Later, in Jack’s bedroom with all the lights on, Brock pants into his folded arms and cringes at every sharp twinge in his sore thigh. Jack’s taking his time about it, getting in him nice and slow, but it’s still a stretch. A good stretch, a hot one.

When his balls are flush with Brock’s ass, knot swollen up tight inside, Jack leans down over him, groaning. “Like it?” he asks with his mouth against Brock’s shoulder blade, solicitous like he usually isn’t.

Brock nods into his arms, cock hard as nails between his legs. He could come like this, just from the thick flexing of Jack’s dick in him, he’s sure of it. Jack starts riding him, thorough and deep and unexpectedly slow. Slow enough that after a while Brock gets annoyed about it, always right on the cusp of coming and never making it, until Jack slides both hands under his belly and presses up like he wants to feel his cock through Brock’s stomach.

“I’m not wearing a rubber,” Jack says in his ear.

“Shit,” Brock breathes, half alarmed and half turned on, because he’d known that, but-- “Jack--”

“What’s the point?” Jack’s teeth graze the shell of Brock’s ear, down to the spot where the bite is healing up to a nice tender pink. “You’re already full of babies.”

Brock comes on the spot, gasping into the bed.

~*~

In the morning, Jack drives them both to work. He goes through a drive-thru and Brock’s still half-asleep, so he doesn’t notice Jack ordering him an herbal tea and a bagel until it’s too late.

“What the fuck is this?” Brock complains, sniffing the cardboard cup. “Smells like fruit or some shit.”

“Or some shit,” Jack says, shrugging. “Caffeine’s bad for you.”

Brock stares at him wordlessly through two traffic lights and a stop sign before he finally says. “Look, Jack…”

It’s only 5:30 in the morning, barely light out, but Brock sees a glint of teeth when Jack grins sideways at him, rolling his eyes. “I’m messing with you, dipshit.”

“Yeah,” Brock says. “Okay. Because I’m not having your fucking babies, you hear me? My first day off, I’m getting it dealt with.”

“Yup.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know,” says Jack, and a few minutes later he swings the wheel to take them into the Triskelion’s back parking lot. “But only when I say you can,” he continues a minute later, easing the truck down the narrow underground access.

Brock snorts. “I don’t fuckin’ think so.”

Jack makes a noise like an amused grunt. “Drink your tea.”

As soon as they park, Brock gets out and slams the door. He leaves the tea in the cupholder.

~*~

The first shithead who smirks at Brock’s newly raw bitemark that morning and says, “Have a good night, Commander?” gets a mouthful of broken teeth and a trip to the emergency room for spinal trauma. Brock might worry about a write-up, but they’d been sparring at the time and he can file it as an accident. Wouldn’t be the first time.

In the locker room, he rinses blood off his hand, wincing at the shredded knuckles. He looks at himself in the mirror for a few long minutes, turning and stretching, but he can’t see any difference. He’s as hard and wiry as ever, his abs tight, firm.

Maybe Jack’s shooting blanks, anyhow. Maybe it didn’t even take.

~*~

“Fuck,” Brock whispers to himself, looking down at the stick.

~*~

He leaves it a week. He leaves it another after that.

It’s not on purpose, it’s just that things have gotten busy. It doesn’t matter if he gets it taken care of at three weeks or ten, in the long run. He doesn’t have time for a two week recovery right now. With the Project Insight launch just over a year away, deadlines on a lot of other projects are coming up fast. STRIKE’s started doing international field work every few days and running ragged on home soil in between. He’s not even surprised when he gets an email, heavily coded, informing him the asset is being thawed for use. It’s been two years since the last time, but Brock’s still got the old protocols in place.

He puts Fletcher and Troy on rotation to STRIKE Sigma because they don’t have high enough clearance to even know the asset exists, much less be in the same room with him. He fills out a requisition form to switch his standard-issue stun baton for a 70,000 volt taser that can incapacitate even the asset for a solid minute. He gets back in the habit of wearing the jacket patch that visibly and unmistakably identifies his rank. He lets Jack piss on him.

That one’s new.

“Are you fucking serious?” Brock says, raspy, but he goes down on his knees with Jack’s hand on the back of his neck, squinting against the shower’s spray.

“Shut the fuck up,” mutters Jack, who is not much of a morning person. His cock is half hard from pushing up against Brock’s soapy ass. He takes a minute rubbing at it, coaxing, and at first Brock thinks Jack’s just going to jerk off on his face, maybe stick it in his mouth for a minute, but then the stream of piss starts.

He flinches back from the splash of it on his face, shocked, but Jack’s hand curls in his hair and gives it a yank. Brock opens his mouth on a splutter by accident and takes a solid shot right in the back of throat. The heat of it chokes him, the taste, but Jack steps in until his thighs are up against Brock’s chest, gets a knee into the bend of his shoulder and pins him against the wall of the shower before Brock can lift a hand.

He coughs, gags, tries to turn his head out of the way, but Jack’s got him like a cat by the scruff, gives him a sharp warning shake. He’s heavy-lidded above Brock, head bent and hair dripping, the width of his freckled torso nearly blocking the ceiling light. Brock shuts his eyes before he gets piss in them, but the image of it sticks to the inside of his lids, Jack half asleep and slack around the jaw, nearly soft, biting his bottom lip. Groaning.

Brock quits fighting.

Jack lets him rinse off after, but not wash. “Leave it,” he says, when Brock reaches for the soap.

Brock hesitates, eyeing him, but they’re in Jack’s shower, so it’s some vanilla-scented body wash shit anyway. “Whatever,” he grumbles under his breath.

Jack jerks him off after, pressed up against him from behind, one hand low on Brock’s stomach and the other curled big and competent around Brock’s hard-on, twisting his wrist just right. When Brock comes, his head drops back onto Jack’s shoulder, knees shaking, and Jack gnaws a little at the bite that’s still raw.

So that kind of makes up for it.

~*~

“You smell…” the asset says. His head cocks.

Brock eyes him warily, the curl of his half-naked body in the chair. There are techs all over the room, murmuring and fiddling with switches and measuring out medications, but the asset’s voice is pitched low enough that Brock doesn’t think they can hear him.

It’s not a big room, nearly claustrophobic with equipment and bodies, so Brock is standing a lot closer to the asset than strictly comfortable. The asset’s not strapped down, and even shirtless, spine curved low, hair tied back messily, he gives Brock the creeps. Brock’s seen how he moves: that big fuck-off arm could have him in a chokehold faster than Brock could flip his taser switch.

“What?” he snaps, when the asset doesn’t finish.

Slowly, the asset leans forward, sitting up. At Brock’s left, a tech turns around jumpily, but Brock waves her off. The asset looks at Brock with a furrow between his brows, lifting his right arm, palm out. Brock doesn’t step back. Gently, almost tentatively, the asset presses his hand to the middle of Brock’s stomach, brushes his knuckles there. A cold wash goes down Brock’s spine.

“You smell… ripe,” the asset murmurs.

Brock slaps his hand away. It catches even himself by surprise, the uncoordinated panic of it. “Shut the fuck up,” he hisses, taking two steps back. It puts him closer to the door, but also closer to a cluster of labcoats who part around him like spooked starlings.

The asset’s still looking at him, curious, open. “It’s good,” he says, like he’s trying to make Brock feel better. “It’s warm.”

“Goddamnit,” Brock says under his breath. “God fucking-- There’s no way you can smell that, no _way_ .”

The asset doesn’t answer. He’s staring at Brock’s midsection like it’s a nature documentary about sharks, wary but smitten. It jolts a bit of knowledge in Brock’s head, a line from one of the first reports he’d read about the asset; he’s an alpha, pumped full of so many suppressants he probably hasn’t had a boner in decades. He’s a neuter, no pheromone bleed even in this room full of nerd omegas. Brock’s never caught a whiff of him before.

But there’s something, now… Something spicy. Faint.

“Fuck this,” Brock says out loud, turning toward the door. “I’ll be in the hall.”

“But, sir--” Dr. Emile looks up from her clipboard. “Your evaluation?”

“He’s clear.” Brock grabs for the knob, nearly rips it out of the door. “He’s good, he’s ready for combat.”

He bolts.

~*~

He doesn’t say anything to Jack about it because he doesn’t see Jack that night, the two of them splitting off to their own apartments, and because he just plain doesn’t want to. It’s none of Jack’s business. And besides, Brock is probably overreacting, on edge from lack of sleep and the degree of bullshit he’s been putting up with from the powers that be. It’s been a rough week.

The next day is back-to-back meetings, briefings segueing into debriefings into dressing downs into seminars, and Brock’s in such a foul mood by the end of it that he goes straight to the gym and destroys a training dummy with his bare fists. STRIKE’s wheels up at 0400 in the morning, so he stays the night in the bunk room at the Triskelion, wedged into the first cubicle inside the door so anyone coming in has to walk past him. He’s spoiling for a fight, but no one gives him shit and he goes to sleep with his jaw clenched so tight he wakes up with sore teeth.

Loading into the quinjet goes smooth, the asset in first and the rest of the team after. Brock tenses when the asset passes, but there’s no confrontation or recognition, just blank eyes sliding over him. It deflates Brock a little, rankles him, but he doesn’t force the issue. The asset’s memory is like a towel when it comes to anything but combat and weaponry; he can only soak up so much. He probably doesn’t even remember seeing Brock yesterday.

The quinjet lifts off while Brock’s still getting situated, double-checking everyone’s ordnance and gear. He doesn’t pay much attention beyond bracing himself against the acceleration, but when he turns around to get his own seat, he nearly smacks into the asset.

He’s standing way too close, dark and solid in his leather tac suit, motionless. Brock drops his hand to his taser immediately, flipping the holster open with his thumb. “Back the fuck up,” he snaps, remembering at the last second to square up assertively rather than drop back defensively. The asset’s like a dog, zeroing in on the slightest hint of weakness in a CO, and Brock’s seen it go bad in the most technicolor splatterfest way possible.

“Are you…” the asset says. He seems to make a half-assed effort to obey Brock’s order, shuffling a little sideways. He frowns, searching for words. “Is it good for you to…”

Brock stares back at him, aghast. The asset’s hand is fidgeting at his own belt, like he’s nervous. The dip of his chin is nothing but meek, non-threatening, but all Brock can see is the coiled potential in that metal arm, the history of violence in the long lines of his body. He doesn’t register what the asset is saying until his eyes drop to Brock’s belly, sketch the outline of it in a quick back-and-forth flick. Chills erupt down Brock’s spine.

“You better get back in your fucking seat,” he growls, “before I put you there.”

The asset looks up at him from under his hair, mouth open like he wants to protest, but then his eyes go to where Brock’s pulling the taser from the holster. Jerkily, he nods. “I… sorry,” he murmurs, shoulders bunching. He looks confused, almost hurt, but he’s backing off. One step, and another--

And then his head snaps up and his eyes lock over Brock’s shoulder and his lips peel back in a snarl. Brock whips around, adrenaline lighting his muscles, but it’s just Jack. It’s just Jack, head lowered and eyes hooded, coming up behind Brock like the wrath of God. Fists clenched, tendons standing out in his neck, and, oh--

“Whoa, whoa!” Brock throws out a hand to stop Jack, at the same moment turning his body to intercept the asset coming in from Brock’s other side, the two of them sizing each other up across Brock like pitbulls over a piece of meat. Distantly, Brock registers the sound of STRIKE going for their stun batons, unbuckling safety harnesses and rattling hip holsters. “Both of you,” Brock says, loud enough to ring the walls, “sit the fuck down! I’m not saying it again.”

It’s a long second, Brock horrifically aware of the vulnerability of his position and the fact that it’s nothing but sheer body language and eye contact keeping a bloodbath at bay, before the asset drops his gaze first. He takes three big steps backward and sits down in his seat, swinging his head to stare at the wall like an offended cat.

Brock’s still got one hand braced against Jack’s chest, and he realises that what he’s feeling vibrate the length of his arm isn’t the quinjet’s engine, but Jack growling. Brock yanks his hand away. “Go sit down,” he spits, quiet like the rest of STRIKE can’t hear every word. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

Jack’s nostrils flare, belligerent, but he does as he’s told. If his eyes go to Brock’s belly for a second before he turns away, like the asset’s did, it’s nothing but coincidence.

Brock takes his own seat, reholstering the taser, and doesn’t let himself think about what just happened. It was only a bit of bravado taken too far, the asset destabilised from cryo, interpersonnel attitude problems, nothing more. A few minutes later, when Mulroy leans over and murmurs, “Sir, is the asset… safe for duty? I’ve never seen him behave like that,” Brock tells her, “Don’t worry about it, he’s fine. Just a miscommunication about who’s in charge. I’ve got it under control.”

He almost believes it.

~*~

Brock tears Jack a new asshole the second they’re alone, up one side of him and down the other, and Jack takes it quietly, hands tucked behind his back at parade rest, face neutral. It’s worse than if he kicked up a fuss, because Brock feels like he’s shouting at a brick wall, his words bouncing straight back at him, a reflection cracked with anger.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he finishes, once his throat is sore and the hammer of his pulse has started to level out.

For the first time, Jack meets his eyes. There’s nothing apologetic in them, only a narrow intensity. A long moment passes, Brock getting his breathing under control and Jack watching him do it. They’re behind the listing, rusted bulk of an old excavator, halfway down the long dirt driveway that leads to the team’s safehouse. No one can hear them out here, Brock checked, and it’s just about dark; Jack is starting to blend into the deep forest shadows at his back.

“Well?” Brock demands, when Jack doesn’t answer.

Slowly, Jack steps forward. His hands are still behind his back, but Brock thrills with the possibility of violence, tucking his chin for it. He’s not disappointed. Jack goes for him in a split-second blur of movement, lunging across the space between them. Brock ducks sideways, but isn’t quite fast enough to avoid getting clipped by Jack’s shoulder. It knocks him off balance, enough that his counter-strike lands just left of center, missing Jack’s solar plexus by a critical inch. They grapple, Jack’s arms longer but Brock’s fists harder. Brock throws a couple vicious punches and takes three in return, gets one of Jack’s arms up behind his back, but Jack grabs him in a chokehold at the same instant and they grind to a zero-sum impasse, the fight stalled as fast as it started.

They pant loudly in the twilight stillness, tangled awkwardly around each other, straining not to give an inch. Brock’s feet skid in the dirt, Jack bearing down on him. He works one hand loose to give Jack a kidney shot, but it weakens his stance and Jack takes advantage, flips him around and gets him in a half nelson. Jack’s fist landing square in his stomach knocks the breath out of him. He throws an elbow back, gasping, but Jack takes it in the side with a grunt and doesn’t lose his hold.

“That what you want?” Jack pants in his ear, low and snarling. It sounds like he’s breathing through blood. Brock hopes he is, hopes he managed to get at least one good shot in. Jack punches him in the stomach again, so hard Brock’s vision blackens for a second and he nearly retches. It’s like being back in basic all over again, scrapping with someone better than him, not the civilians and two-bit terrorists he usually fights these days, not rookies in the gym.

“You want to get out of this so bad?” Jack’s next punch lands right where the last one did, in the lowest part of Brock’s belly and, shit-- “Want me to hit you until it goes away?”

Brock can’t draw breath to reply, and even if he could, all he’d say is ‘Fuck you.’ Jack hits him one more time, like a punctuation mark, and lets him go. Brock nearly drops, but he knows better; he comes up swinging and gives Jack a solid right hook to the jaw. Jack takes it like a champ, rocking back, but doesn’t retaliate. He steps a deliberate pace away, shaking out his red-knuckled fist. His nose is bloody and he wipes the side of his hand under it, snorting.

Brock stays low, ready, despite the screaming throb in his belly. He’s bleeding, he can feel it dripping down his chin. There’s a sharp swollen feeling in his shoulder where Jack wrenched it.

“That’s enough,” Jack says. He turns his head sideways and spits on the ground, bright with blood. “Get over here.”

Brock laughs, and then gasps, because it _hurts_. “Fuck you,” he rasps.

Jack takes a step forward and Brock says, “Hey!” but Jack reaches for him slow and careful this time, showing all his movements. Brock doesn’t drop stance, but he lets Jack ease closer, get a hand on him, on his wrist. It sends an electric jolt through him, twisting hot in his aching gut.

Jack tugs. “Come here.” The moment stretches long, excruciating. It’s like walking on broken glass, but Brock lets himself get pulled closer, Jack reeling him in and at the same time twisting his arm until Brock has no choice but to turn around or have his throbbing shoulder dislocated. It happens slow, almost surreal, his body reacting where his mind is losing focus, going white. By the time his back is to Jack and Jack has a hand on the nape of his neck, bending him over, it’s too late. He’s done.

His knees nearly give out, but Jack catches him with one hand on his hip. “Relax,” Jack croons. “Be good.”

Brock bares his teeth. That hurts too, his split lip welling with blood. His belly feels even worse, like something’s ripped, when Jack pushes him nearly double. He stumbles, but they’re close enough to the excavator that he can reach out and brace himself. He feels Jack’s hand at his ass, but he’s not pulling down Brock’s pants, he’s opening his own. A second later, the tell-tale motion of Jack jerking himself off, the bottom of his fist skimming the top of Brock’s ass. The familiarity of it, the animal sexuality, makes Brock’s own cock lurch past the half-chub he’s been sporting and into a full-blown erection.

“You gonna fuck me?” he asks, rough.

“Shut the fuck up.” The hand on Brock’s hip squeezes tight. “You don’t get to ask me shit about what I’m doing with you. You don’t get a say.”

Brock opens his mouth, but Jack preempts him. “In the field, I’m your second. Everywhere else, you’re my bitch. You hear me?”

Brock inhales sharply. He doesn’t answer. His head’s too cloudy to answer, stuffed with cotton and pulsing lights. Jack shoves Brock’s shirt up, baring his back, and comes with a few vicious jerks of his hand. It lands warm and thick on Brock’s spine and runs down the slope of it, pooling in the small of his back. For a second, neither of them move, Jack breathing hard and Brock holding his breath. The forest is quiet around them, only just starting to hum with insects. The sun’s all the way down.

Finally, Jack tucks his dick back in his pants and Brock hears the zipper go up. Jack’s hand lands on him, gently. He touches the dip of Brock’s back, gathering up the cooling cum, and rubs it into Brock’s skin. Up and down the length of his spine, long smooth motions like a massage with expensive oil.

“You keep that,” he says, low. “You keep that and you remember just what you are.” All the way up to Brock’s shoulder blades, between them, around his ribs. The spunk’s tacky and it smells strong, bleachy. “Okay?”

Jerkily, still gripped by Jack’s hand on his neck, Brock nods. He feels lightheaded, ready to go off in his shorts, every nerve in his body on fire.

Jack tugs Brock’s shirt down and lets him straighten, pulls him in before he can get away. “Not so bad, right?” He chucks Brock under the chin. “Gonna do what you’re told?”

“Yeah,” Brock says. His voice is wrecked, like he’s been crying or gotten strangled bad.

“That’s sweet of you.” Jack kisses him, a good deep kiss that bites as much as it soothes. When he pulls back, he kisses Brock’s cheek too. “Let’s go get dinner.”

~*~

In the morning, when the asset gets within sniffing distance of Brock, instead of going soft-eyed and eager, he takes one deep breath and recoils. His eyes dart from Brock to Jack.

Brock hesitates with one boot on, pulling on the other. He waits for the asset to blurt something damning, but nothing happens. The asset steps back warily, fists clenching and unclenching, and goes to gather his gear from the other side of the room. He stays over there until the rest of the team is between him and Brock, and when Brock looks across the room at Jack, Jack is smirking right back at him.

~*~

Everything’s fine.

Brock hardly believes it, because his whole stomach turns purple and red in the shape of Jack’s knuckles and eating is hell for twelve hours, but a day passes without bleeding or cramping, and then another, and then another. By the time they’re back home, Brock has warily come to terms with his continued situation. Then he’s just mad. Jack’s self-important penchant for drama had made Brock pop Vicodin like candy for two days, and nearly compromised the mission when he’d ended up thinking twice about rappelling down the side of a building with eighty pounds of gear strapped to his back. He’d done it, but he’d thought twice, and that was nearly as bad as not doing it at all.

As soon as he’s gotten home and changed his socks and taken three good slugs out of the whisky bottle in the freezer, he calls Jack. “Get over here,” he says, when Jack picks up with a grunt. “Bring pizza. You owe me.”

There’s a pause. “Anchovies?”

“Don’t be a sick fuck,” Brock says, and hangs up.

They eat pizza and have two beer apiece with some dumbass Adam Sandler movie playing in the background. After, Jack crowds Brock up against the table and spends a while on his knees kissing the fading yellow patches on Brock’s belly. He spreads his hands across them and rubs the tension out of Brock’s abs, catches his thumb in the dip of Brock’s navel, puts his tongue in after it. He murmurs some stuff that sounds saccharine but is probably horrifying, and Brock relaxes back on his elbows, one hand buried in the stiffness of Jack’s gelled hair. He’s too tired to complain.

Jack blows him up against the table like that, and then turns him over and puts a whole new set of bruises on his hips and throat and ass.

~*~

Brock starts throwing up two or six times a day, but that’s mostly because he’s been drinking too much coffee and not sleeping so great. It’s fine. It’ll pass.

~*~

Four weeks later, he gets an automatic email notification at work and spends a quarter hour pacing an eighth floor bathroom saying “Shit!” out loud at different volumes and with varying intonations. Then he sticks his head under the cold tap for a bit, slicks his hair back, and heads downstairs.

It’s Jack’s turn to torture SHIELD recruits today. Brock finds him in the firing range scowling at a lineup of crew-cut youngsters wielding Magnums and earnest expressions.

“Hey,” Brock calls, waving a hand so Jack will notice him despite the earmuffs. He doesn’t bother making eye contact with the cannon fodder, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the door. Jack nods, barking an order for the rookies to stand the fuck still and not shoot anybody, and follows Brock out into the hall. There are people everywhere, but Brock doesn’t want to make a big scene about privacy or whatever, so he drops his voice and leans in a couple inches.

“I’ve got my physical coming up,” he says, without preamble. “Three days.”

Jack stares at him for a second, blinking slowly. “Good,” he says at last. “You threw out your knee again, didn’t you?”

“No,” Brock snaps, even though it’s been twinging for a week. He makes a quick, sharp gesture at himself. “My knee is the least of our problems.”

“So you _did_ throw it out.”

Brock narrows his eyes. Jack’s being deliberately obtuse and not bothering to hide it. There’s a smirk plain as day at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, okay, that’s how you want to do this? Fine.” Brock points a finger straight in his face. “I want this shit out of me. I want it out last month, I don’t want it in the first place. This is your fucking fault and you know it, so you can either be useful for once in your miserable goddamn existence, or I’ll take care of it myself and you can go fuck yourself with the dick that’s never getting anywhere near me again.”

He turns to leave, but Jack grabs his wrist. He’s outright chuckling now, and it makes Brock see red. He wants to put his fist straight through Jack’s face, but he knows better than to throw down in a crowded hallway at eleven am with security cams everywhere.

“Hey, all right,” Jack says. “Give it a rest, cupcake, I hear you.”

“Do you?” Brock demands.

“It’s been busy lately.” Jack shrugs. “It got out of hand. We’ll deal with it. But there’s no point doing it now, right? As soon as the docs downstairs get their hands on you they’ll know you had it done, anyway. Wait until after. They can get the paperwork started for insurance and give you vitamins or whatever.”

Brock snorts, searching Jack’s face for evidence of bullshit or teasing. There’s a little twinkle, maybe, but Jack looks serious. And... he’s probably right. It rankles Brock at the level of his soul to admit it, even to himself, but there’s no keeping it a secret from SHIELD medical staff at this point. Why bother? They’re probably the best shot he’s got at having things taken care of cleanly and quietly, anyway. Suffer through this one humiliation and go his merry way. Sign some forms, have SHIELD’s multi-million dollar contractors pull some strings, get things squared away stat.

He concedes. “Fine. But right after, you hear me? Right fucking after.”

~*~

The doctor lets Brock change into the paper gown behind a curtain, and that’s where common decency ends. Physicals have never been Brock’s favorite thing, but this one is particularly unpleasant. He’s tense as hell, dry-mouthed, jumpy. He sits on the edge of the examination bed and keeps his legs tight together under the gown, sweating at the backs of his knees and in his armpits.

The doctor is a pleasant middle-aged man, SHIELD through-and-through. He smiles and shakes Brock’s hand and calls him Mr. Rumlow. Makes a mild joke about the broken vending machine down the hall. He sits across from Brock on a swivel stool, pulls out a clipboard, and starts asking the usual questions: smoking, drinking, exercise habits, diet, recent injuries, sleep patterns, current medication.

Brock answers truthfully, because he learned the hard way years ago that lying to doctors doesn’t do anyone any good. When the doctor asks, “Currently sexually active?” Brock clears his throat and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, scratching his cheek. It’s a nervous tic, one he hates, and he pulls his hand down too fast. “Yeah, uh, yes.”

The doctor makes a check on the clipboard. “How many partners in the past six months?”

Brock squints, trying to figure out how to say ‘one’ without it actually sounding like ‘one.’ He can’t. “One.”

“Alpha, beta, or omega?”

“Alpha.”

“Is that a mating bite on your neck?”

Brock nearly reaches up to touch the sensitive spot Jack gnaws at every day. It’s healed finally, but it’s pink, obvious. “Something like that.”

The doctor nods, making a couple more notes. Brock looks at the clock above the door, watching the second hand swing glacially past 5 and 6. Maybe he can beg out early on the claim of a prior appointment.

“I see you aren’t on suppressants,” the doctor says. “Why is that?”

“I’m allergic.”

The doctor cocks his head. “Even to Oclazyne?”

Brock smirks, rueful, because he goes through this spiel every six months. “Oclazyne voids the SHIELD contract.”

“Ah.” The doctor flips a sheet, reading ahead. “The mood swings.”

“Yeah, that.” Brock raises his arm, does a showy bicep curl. “And the way your muscles all turn to dog shit.”

The doctor chuckles. “That would be unfortunate.” He flips the sheet back. “When was your last heat?"

Brock hesitates like he’s doing some mental math, even though he knows the answer down to the day. “Seven weeks back.”

“And you had an alpha partner? Male or female?”

“Male.”

“What kind of birth control did you use?”

Brock takes a deep breath through his nose. Right here is usually where he’d cock a grin and say something like, “My bad attitude,” or “A good left hook.” Not today, though. “Nothing,” he says.

The doctor’s eyes shoot up, brows rising. “Nothing?”

Brock nods. He hasn’t blushed in too many years to count, but there’s a prickling heat spreading over the back of his neck that he refuses to think about. “Got a little carried away, you know?” He smiles, shrugs. “It happens.”

The doctor sits up a bit straighter, pen scribbling across the clipboard. “Did you take secondary measures the day after?”

“No.” The wash of embarrassment surprises him. It’s so fucking dumb, this whole situation: a teenager-mistake, too useless to take proper care of himself, letting things get this bad just because he hadn’t wanted to think about it. “I know, I know--” he says, cutting off the doctor’s inevitable next question. “I’m a fuckin’ idiot, don’t have to tell me. I’m getting it taken care of as soon as possible, just have to get some time off work.”

The doctor lowers his pen. “Have you taken a pregnancy test?”

Brock nods.

“And you plan to terminate?”

“Soon as possible,” Brock repeats.

“All right.” The doctor nods, setting aside the clipboard. “That’s probably for the best. You’re a little old to carry a fetus to term.”

Brock gapes. Before he can even start sputtering a response, the doctor stands and reaches into a box of latex gloves on his desk. “I’m going to do your physical examination now, and then we can talk about your options. Sound good?”

“Uh, yeah.” Brock blinks. “Sure.”

It’s the usual procedure for the first couple minutes, Brock fessing up to his clicking knee and the doctor checking a row of calf stitches a STRIKE field-medic gave him five days ago. It’s when the doctor picks up his stethoscope and says, “Lean forward, please,” that things get dicey.

The gown splits up the back, breezy all the way to the crack of Brock’s ass. The doctor parts the halves and Brock braces himself for the cold touch of the stethoscope, but it doesn’t come.

“You didn’t mention these injuries,” the doctor says.

Brock frowns. “Oh. That, yeah. It’s nothing, they don’t hurt.”

The doctor touches either side of Brock’s spine, and okay that does hurt a little. There are a couple welts where Jack’s buckle caught him instead of the flat of the belt itself, and they’d bled a bit. It was two days ago, though; they’re nearly healed.

“Are these combat wounds?” the doctor asks. He sounds dubious.

“No,” Brock says, without thinking. “They’re, uh…” Fuck. “They’re, y’know. Just fuckin’ around.”

“Sexually?”

Brock winces. Damnit, he’s slow on the draw today. “Yeah, sexually.”

“I see.” The doctor pulls the gown open the rest of the way, and now that Brock’s thinking about it, the buckle marks aren’t the only things back there. He opens his mouth, but the doctor beats him to it. “And these bruises?”

“Same.”

There’s a minute of silence while the doctor takes his sweet time investigating every square inch of Brock’s back and sides before he finally puts the stethoscope to use. It’s cold, just like Brock had expected.

He’s allowed to sit up straight, finally, and the doctor puts on a fresh pair of gloves. His expression is less genial than it had been before. “Feet up here, please,” he says, patting the stirrups.

Brock’s heart sinks. “Aw, come on…” he starts.

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Rumlow.”

“But I’m getting rid of it,” Brock protests. “Who cares if it’s healthy or whatever?”

“This is a matter of your health and safety, not the fetus’.” The doctor brings the stool around to the end of the bed. “Feet up.”

Grudgingly, Brock obeys. He’s had doctors stick their fingers up his ass before, but this isn’t the same. It’s one step sideways of clinical and one step back from perfunctory. There’s a spotlight, for god’s sake, which the doctor swivels around to shine bright as day all over Brock’s business. He starts poking around while Brock stares at the ceiling, at the poster of a cat in a flower basket tacked up there. He can just blank out until it’s all over.

“Mr. Rumlow,” the doctor says, a minute later. He sounds… off.

“What.”

“Have you been sexually assaulted?”

Brock’s head flies up so fast he nearly cracks his neck. “Excuse me?”

The doctor looks up at him from between his spread thighs. “I’m seeing some evidence consistent with sexual assault.”

“Fuck no,” Brock says. “Are you kidding?”

“There’s tearing and signs of stress, as well as extensive bruising and some partially healed epidermal abrasions.” He looks mildly apologetic, carefully calm. “Generally that indicates--”

“Uh-uh.” Brock shakes his head. “No way, definitely not.”

There’s no change in the doctor’s expression. “These are signs of rough or forced penetration, there’s--”

“Rough, sure,” Brock interjects. “Not forced. No fucking way. I showed you my arms, right?” He lifts his right arm and does a Strongman clench. “Nobody’s putting me on my back without my say-so.”

The doctor smiles, but it’s not pleasant. “Sexual assault does not always entail being physically overpowered, Mr. Rumlow.” He shrugs in a way that is unconvincingly nonchalant. “However, you are the authority on your own sex life, and as long as everyone is consenting and happy, that’s what matters.”

“Damn right,” Brock mutters. He drops his head back onto the bed. “Can we hurry this up a bit, I’ve got shit to do today.”

“Nearly finished.”

There’s a minute more of fiddling around down south, and then the doctor switches gloves again and does an abdominal exam. It’s not uncomfortable, but it makes Brock keenly glad that all the bruises faded off his belly weeks ago. That would have been a shitshow to explain.

“You’re definitely pregnant,” says the doctor, fingers jabbing somewhere near Brock’s spleen. “About seven weeks, for sure.”

Brock bites his tongue on a smart-ass comment.

“The sooner you have it terminated, the better. I have a list of specialists who can put you at top priority.” The doctor pushes his stool back from the side of the table and smiles. “Working for SHIELD does have its perks.”

“Tell me about it,” Brock grumbles.

He gets back in his clothes while the doctor puts together a packet of paperwork and prescriptions, and then he heads home. It’s dark out, the days short this time of year, and the roads are slick with frost. Probably going to snow overnight.

At his kitchen counter with the cold whisky bottle in hand, he flips through the paperwork. There are SHIELD insurance forms and requests for medical leave to sign, a bulleted list of SHIELD-approved surgeons, and a handful of brightly colored brochures. One of them is called _Making the Right Choice_ and has a picture of a meadow on it. It lists the pros and cons of abortion, most of them bogus emotional manipulation. Brock snorts and throws it back in the folder. Another pamphlet falls out. He picks it up and flips it over. It reads, _Recognizing the Signs of an Abusive Relationship_. There’s a burly dude looking depressed on the cover, gazing off into the distance.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Brock mutters. That doctor, Jesus Christ. Must have thought he was sly as a fox. Brock thinks about keeping the brochure to show Jack, so they can both have a laugh about it, but in the end he crumples it up and throws it in the trash.

~*~

“Wait, wait,” Brock says, putting on a burst of speed to jog around Jack and run backwards, facing him. “You’re doing what?”

Jack scowls at him, eyes still half-squinted with sleep. “Going to Tucson. For three weeks. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Brock nearly misses his next stride and has to fall back in at Jack’s side, narrowly dodging a sporty woman power-walking a stroller.

“The fuck did I just say?” Jack growls.

They’re only a third of the way through the park circuit, but already Brock’s lungs feel icy, breath heaving out in huge white clouds. He stares at the side of Jack’s face, rough with ten days of stubble, pink from the cold. “But I was…” He trails off, breathing hard.

Jack slants a look at him, not breaking pace, lets a beat of silence pass. “It can wait till I get back.”

Brock barks an unfriendly laugh. “It’s been seven goddamn weeks, Jack, it can’t wait any longer.”

“It’s been seven goddamn weeks, Brock,” Jack mimics. “It can wait another three.”

Brock loses stride again and stops running, sneakers sliding on the frosty concrete. He throws up his hands. “I can’t fucking believe you! Do you hear yourself?”

Jack jogs on another ten feet and then slows and stops, turning around, hands low on his hips. “Don’t be such a pussy, you can handle it.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have to.” Brock crosses the distance between them, jabs his finger into the hard muscle of Jack’s sweaty chest. “This isn’t your body getting the shit kicked out of it from the inside. Do you have any idea how much I’ve thrown up in the past month?”

Jack rolls his eyes. He grabs Brock’s wrist and twists it back, digging his thumb into the pressure point in Brock’s palm. It hurts, but Brock lets him do it.

“I said, don’t be such a pussy.” He pulls Brock closer, right up against him, and puts his other hand on Brock’s stomach, squeezes hard. “This is my baby. You don’t get to kill it without me there.”

Brock squirms. He’s mad, but the warmth and grip of Jack’s hand makes his groin tighten.  “Come on,” he mutters. “Don’t talk about it like that. It’s not a fuckin’ baby.”

“It’s mine,” Jack says. “Whatever it is. You’re mine.”

Brock’s breath hitches in his throat, but it’s just from the cold. “Screw you,” he says, softly.

“Screw you, too.”

They stare at each other for a few seconds, blocking the pathway together. A yuppie with a dog mutters in passing, but Brock doesn’t pay any attention. Jack’s looking at him like… Like he’s…

“Let’s go,” Jack says. He takes his thumb off the pressure point and strokes it once over the inside of Brock’s wrist. “We need a shower.”

~*~

The first week Jack’s gone, Brock is in a foul mood. The nausea is worse than ever, setting off at the slightest provocation. He has to stop eating bacon in the morning because the smell makes him hurl. He spends three days moping about that, sucking down bland protein shakes instead.

The second week, he gets called into Pierce’s office to learn that Captain America is being attached to STRIKE Alpha next month. It’s everything Brock can do not to lose his shit right there at Pierce’s desk. It’s an enormous opportunity and an enormous risk, putting Rogers right in the lion’s mouth like that. Brock recognises the assignment for what it is: a test, and a privilege. He says, “Yes, sir,” and, “Thank you, sir,” and, “I can do that, sir,” until he’s blue in the face, and then he goes out in the hallway and allows himself a single fist pump because Jesus, Captain America. Brock met him once, after the Battle of New York. He’d been polite, standoffish, a pretty blond kid with a hell of an attitude problem and the biggest potential for sheer physical destruction Brock’s ever seen bottled up in a single person. He’s pretty sure they’re going to get along great.

Less pleasantly, Brock starts showing during the second week. He sees it in the gym at the Triskelion, changing into his sweats. It startles him so bad he stands there staring at his reflection for a solid minute, turning back and forth. It’s definitely noticeable, a smooth rounding under the firm muscle, pushing out the waistband of his boxers. He touches the shape of it, smooths his hand over it. It feels normal, maybe a little tight. Nothing to write home about, really.

He puts on a baggy shirt and gets in the cage to go a couple rounds with Agent Ludlum, but the first time Ludlum gets in under Brock’s guard and plants a fist in his stomach, Brock nearly has a fit. It startles him, the intensity of his knee-jerk defensiveness, leaping back, elbows in. Ludlum follows him, seeing his jumpiness as an opening, and gets his nose broken and an eardrum popped for his trouble.

“Sorry,” Brock says, half-hearted, as Ludlum climbs out of the cage pouring blood.

STRIKE’s got a mission the next day, home soil, thank Christ. Brock leads, Agent Holt at his eight, where Jack usually is. It’s weird, but it’s not too weird. They contain the target with minimal fuss, secure the area for cleanup, and are back on the plane to DC in under eleven hours. Smooth.

Brock gets home in the early hours of the morning, jet-lagged, and sleeps on the couch until the sun wakes him up. He drags himself toward the bedroom, peeling out of his stale clothes, and pauses in front of the hallway mirror. It’s seems more obvious now, although maybe that’s just the lighting and how naked he is. He touches it again, amazed at the way it fits between the cuts of his abs, pushing them just slightly out of shape. His nipples hurt, but they have for a while.

“Goddamn,” he murmurs to himself. “Shit.”

Thank fuck he’s getting it done soon. This is getting out of hand. He’s not sure what the cut-off point is for a safe procedure, but he doesn’t want to get anywhere near it. That’s all he’d fucking need: bleeding out on the operating table, or, worse yet, getting stuck carrying it all the way through. What the hell would he do with a kid? Sell it, probably. There’s a market for that kind of thing, desperate wannabe parents everywhere. God knows he doesn’t have the genetics to be a decent father.

He goes to bed and jerks off with three fingers up his ass, face down in the pillows.

~*~

The third week, Brock entertains himself thinking about how miserable Jack probably is. Jack hates hot weather, and he hates rookies even more. Brock’s not sure if it was Hydra or SHIELD’s bright idea to put Jack in charge of a training course in field-demolition, but he sure hopes whoever signed that order has airtight job security. There are probably going to be casualties.

STRIKE takes a rare two-day weekend and goes out drinking to celebrate. Brock gets shit-faced at a little pub in Georgetown and spends half the night telling academy anecdotes in honor of Jack’s absence. He throws darts with Graham and Holt and loses horrifically.

Later, a cab drops him off at his curb and he fumbles with his keys for five minutes before getting inside. The apartment’s tidy, as usual, but he manages to trip over the coffee table and break a glass on his way to the kitchen for a drink of water. The stack of paperwork from the SHIELD doctor is still on the counter, right where he’d left it, waiting to be filled out. He shuffles through the folder, leaning against the dishwasher, and finds the _Making the Right Choice_ brochure.

It’s all the same garbage he remembers, but he reads some of the bulleted points out loud to himself, just to make sure.

“...financially stable, yeah… Emotionally ready for--” He snorts and skips that one. “Relationship that-- ha. Work hours… Lifestyle changes… Jesus fuck.” He drops the brochure and pats his stomach. “Yeah, don’t worry, kid,” he mumbles, “daddy’s flushing you down the toilet long before you need fifty grand in therapy.”

The roundness of his belly feels interesting under his hand, satisfying, so he touches it a little more, just idly. Goddamn, does Jack owe him big time. This is a prime fuckup. What would have happened if SHIELD didn’t have his back, insurance-wise? What if he didn’t have a fat paycheck to deal with it himself? He’d be stuck with an ugly kid who’d hate him in no time. He’d have to quit working, or drop hours, or… Well, it’d be Jack’s kid, too, Jack would have to contribute something. Something besides lazy disinterest and an anger problem. They’d have to grow at least one domestic bone between them, and then work hard not to break it.

Brock scoffs under his breath and pushes away from the counter, staggering. “You and me, kid,” he mutters. “We’re a pair.”

~*~

Jack gets back on a Thursday morning, courtesy of a SHIELD helicopter. Brock knows he’s on the way, and is careful not to be too obvious about lurking near the roof elevator. He’s got business on the forty-third floor, anyway; it’s not much of a detour.

Jack looks like murder warmed over when he steps out of the elevator with his duffel in hand. He’s not the only one arriving, so Brock spots his scowl over the heads of a half-dozen other agents. It nearly stops him in his tracks, an unexpected spasm of something clenching his chest, squeezing his lungs. He wipes his palms down his pants and waits, holding up the wall near a potted fern.

When Jack gets close enough, he stops and raises an eyebrow. It’s mocking, knowing, but Brock can see the flash of heat beneath it. Jack looks him up and down like he’s a warm meal after a long day.

“How was the trip?” Brock asks.

Jack grimaces, rolling his shoulders. “A joy. Waiting for me?”

“Nope.” Brock lifts the sheaf of requisition forms in his hand. “On my way to see Sitwell.”

“Too bad. I gotta piss like a racehorse, so I was going to stop by the wheelchair bathroom.” He points down the hall. “The one by the break room, you know. Real fancy.”

“Oh, yeah,” Brock says. “That one.”

Jack nods. His eyes skate Brock head to toe again, lingering.  “Guess I’ll see you around, then.”

“Guess so.”

Jack circles him, and Brock doesn’t think it’s his imagination that Jack’s nostrils flare on the way past. He waits a second, until Jack is halfway down the hall, before heading for Sitwell’s office. It’s a quick visit, or it should be; Sitwell takes the forms and signs them and then somehow gets himself on the topic of baseball, complaining about the game he’d been to Monday. Brock smiles politely and nods and clenches his hands into fists behind his back, because Sitwell signs his checks both metaphorically and literally.

It’s nearly ten minutes before he gets away. He legs it to the handicap bathroom with the sort of brisk, savage stride that’s always gotten him unscathed through airport security and to the front of movie theater lines. There’s no one near the bathroom, but he checks quickly over both shoulders to be sure no one’s watching before knocking once and opening the door. Jack’s leaning on the counter, looking at his fucking fingernails. He glances up casually as Brock comes in and shuts the door.

“Took a while,” he says.

“Sitwell, you know how he is.” Brock shrugs. It’s a falsely nonchalant maneuver; his heart is pounding. It pisses him off, how keyed-up he is. It’s just Jack, just a potential fuck in a bathroom at work. They’ve known each other for years, this ain’t anything special. He’s not a cockhungry skank.

And then Jack straightens from his slouch and takes a step closer and holy Jesus, the smell of him. Brock makes a noise in his throat, helpless, mortifying. It’s like the rush of being in heat all over again, that overwhelming hot reek of alpha sweat and testosterone making his knees weak and his mouth wet. He swallows hard, doesn’t move an inch. Jack’s in a dark t-shirt and jeans, casual from the flight, his arms mostly bare. Brock can feel his pupils dilate just looking at the brutal shape of him.

“Let me see,” Jack says.

Brock doesn’t move for a long second, breathing hard. It’s cool in the bathroom, the fan on overhead, but he’s too hot. Slowly, he pulls his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans. It’s one of Jack’s, forgotten down the side of Brock’s bed weeks ago, and he’d tucked it in loose this morning to hide the swell that’s already made him loosen his belt two notches. He pulls it up over his stomach.

Jack inhales slowly. He works his jaw, whistles low between his teeth. “Jesus.”

“I know.” Brock touches it, two fingers tracing down the middle. “I’m getting fat.”

“You look fuckin’ good.”

Brock glances up at him quick, and then again more firm, because he doesn’t want to seem nervous. “Yeah?” He’d thought Jack would like it, with all his nasty fucking talk, but he hadn’t been sure.

“How’s it feel?” It’s an open question, genuinely curious.

Brock shrugs. He squeezes the lowest curve of his belly, testing. “Weird,” he admits. “Have to piss a lot.”

Jack reaches up to rub his own jaw, taking his time, staring his fill. His gaze is frank and hungry. “Anyone noticed yet?”

“No one’s said anything.”

Jack flashes him a grin. “They might know better.”

Brock grins back, agreeing. “They might know better.”

There’s a beat of silence, the fan ticking away overhead, and then Jack takes another deep breath, steps sideways and knocks the toilet seat down with his boot. “Come here,” he says, sitting. He slaps his thighs.

It’s pretty absurd. Brock’s not the lap-sitting type. He snorts. “Fuck off.”

Jack’s eyebrows rise. “Babe,” he says, not sounding sweet at all. “I said come here.”

Brock makes a show of rolling his eyes, sighing like he’s just playing along, but he’s moving forward at the same time. Jack gets two fingers in his belt loops before Brock can even think about maybe dodging, pulls him in until he has no choice but to sit down. He straddles Jack’s thighs and can’t quite put his feet flat on the floor on either side, which he hopes like hell Jack doesn’t notice.

“You miss me?” Jack asks, both hands on Brock’s hips, and Jesus Christ, what a joke.

“Yeah.” He laughs in Jack’s face. “Cried every night.”

Jack nods. “Good.” He puts his hands on Brock’s stomach, feeling the shape of it. It’s unsettling, someone touching what he’s been so careful about concealing, but it’s not bad. He feels a vibration come through everywhere they’re touching, Jack purring low in his throat. It makes a shiver claw down Brock’s spine, shock into his groin. Jack pushes under his shirt, fingers ticklish on his ribs. “What else? Tell me.”

Brock shifts, chews the inside of his cheek for a second. “Keep rolling over on it at night.” He used to sleep on his stomach, but the change has put him off keeping it up.

“Hurts?”

Brock frowns, shrugs. “No. Just… not right, you know?”

Jack doesn’t answer. He’s rubbing the softened cuts between Brock’s abs, tracing the shape of his navel. He’s waiting for more.

“My nipples hurt,” Brock says at last, fast, under his breath.

Jack’s mouth curves into a smirk. “Knew it,” he mutters. He reaches higher under Brock’s shirt, hands hot and rough, and--

“Shit,” Brock says, flinching.

Jack squeezes him, slow and hard, digging into the aching muscle of Brock’s pecs. “Yeah?”

Brock winces. His own hands are hovering in a strange middle-area between his thighs and Jack’s sides. He curls them into fists. “Not comfortable,” he admits. He’s been avoiding touching his own chest for a while now, maybe a week or two, and he hadn’t realised how deep the hurt has gone. It stings, sort of, a deep throbbing that narrows into a sharpness at his nipples, cradled in the hot palms of Jack’s hands. It’s a weird pain, mellower than a knife in the ribcage or a broken arm, but somehow worse for its unfamiliarity.

Jack squeezes again, kneading like he’s trying to draw the pain up from inside, milk it out. He moves his hands like he’s holding a girl’s tits, cupped from underneath. His thumbs rub across Brock’s nipples, three times, four. “How’s that?” His voice is lower, rough in the narrow space between them.

Brock hesitates. He doesn’t know if saying it hurts is a good or bad idea. But Jack squeezes again before he can decide and he gasps, “Ow,” without meaning to.

“Good?” Jack asks. He puts his open mouth on the dip of Brock’s neck near the bite, sucks wet and messy.

Brock bares his teeth. He can’t say yes, he can’t, so he arches his back instead, pushes his chest up into Jack’s hands. Jack knows what he wants, even if Brock isn’t sure. His thumbs press suddenly, hard and too much, into Brock’s nipples. It hurts in an entirely different way, like Jack might actually damage something delicate inside.

“Shit,” Jack says, sloppy into Brock’s collarbone. “You’ve got… It’s different.”

“Different?” Brock feels a vague stab of panic. “Different how?”

Jack bites him instead of answering, latches on, and his thumbs push again, rub deep. Fuck, it **_does_ ** feel different. There’s stuff in there, maybe, stuff that never used to be, giving and sore under Jack’s touch.

“You’re growing mommy tits.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Brock groans. His throat is already prickling from Jack’s mouth, and the heat races up into his cheeks, over his scalp. His cock had started getting hard the second he’d seen Jack, but it’s like steel in his pants now, bent uncomfortably and desperate to get out. He wants to grind into Jack’s lap, but the angle’s all wrong. He can’t even feel if Jack’s hard too, although Brock’s sure he is. He must be.

Jack lifts his head. There’s a look in his eyes Brock’s not used to seeing, a little wild, a bit out of control. He lets go of Brock’s pecs and yanks his shirt up instead, shoving it into Brock’s armpits. They both look down. Brock’s chest is red from being roughed up, and maybe, now that he’s looking on purpose, a little swollen. Just a bit.

“I’m going to hurt you,” Jack says, matter of fact.

Before Brock can reply, Jack ducks his head and puts his mouth on one of Brock’s nipples. He sucks, too hard. Brock says, “Ow,” again, between his teeth, and, “Shit, _ow_ ,” because Jack’s mouth is vicious. He wasn’t lying; it hurts, tender and sharp, his hands kneading the sensitive undersides of Brock’s pecs. He seals his lips wide around Brock’s nipple, latched like a baby, the way Brock’s seen his sister’s kids nurse. Like he actually expects to get fed, hungry for it.

Brock puts a hand on the back of Jack’s neck, not sure if he wants to pull him tighter or drag him away. It doesn’t make a difference either direction; Jack’s not going anywhere. He sucks for a long time, heavy aching pulls that make Brock feel turned inside out, breath coming sharp and fast, and then switches sides. Brock looks down at his wet nipple, at the purple bruising and the teeth marks. It looks raw and vulnerable, girly. His cock slicks his boxers with precome.

Jack must feel the jerk of it, because he drops one hand between them, yanking at Brock’s belt. Brock reaches down to help, and together they fumble his pants open. Jack circles Brock’s cock, his other hand still cupped and squeezing around Brock’s-- around his tit. God, fuck, he has _tits_.

“Yeah,” he gasps, hips pumping up into Jack’s grip. “Give it to me, come on.”

Jack does. He knows just how to move his wrist, how tight to squeeze. Brock pants and rocks in Jack’s lap and feels all his attention narrow to the deep insistent draw of Jack’s mouth on him, the stroke of Jack’s tongue on his nipple. He’s aching all the way through, trying to give something he doesn’t even have to give. It makes him clench his jaw and throw his head back, groaning louder and louder until finally he comes all over Jack’s hand and his own belly. It bursts out of him, his body being milked the one way it can. Jack sucks his nipple through it, and switches sides while Brock is still shocky and shuddering. It hurts all over again, freshly sensitive. Brock wants to tell him to stop, but can’t gather the words. He has a feeling it would only make Jack suck harder, anyway.

As soon as he has the coordination, he starts sliding backward off Jack’s lap. He can see between them how hard Jack is in his jeans. “Lemme--” he slurs, ready to get on his knees for once, volunteering for it. But Jack grabs his elbow to stop him, mouth leaving Brock’s chest. His lips are swollen and dark, tooth marks in the bottom one where he’d chewed Brock’s nipple against it.

“No.” He takes Brock’s hand and pulls it down between them, presses it to the solid line of his dick through his pants. “I’m putting this up your ass,” he says. “After work. You’re coming home with me, and this is going in you. Understand?”

Brock groans, brain staticky. He’s too fuck-stupid to process anything but the savage rigidity of Jack’s erection, the words ‘up your ass’ looping in his head.

Jack squeezes his wrist. “Understand?” he repeats.

“Yeah.” Brock nods, swallows, blinks hard. “Okay, yeah.”

Jack kisses him then, mouth hot and slick from suckling. He’s rough about it, taking Brock’s mouth by force, and pulls away just when Brock gathers his wits enough to respond. And then he pushes Brock off his lap, steadying him upright. Brock sways, catching himself on the nearest wall. His knees are shaking.

“Go on.” Jack pulls Brock’s shirt out of his armpits and over his chest. It hurts Brock’s nipples, the loose drape of that cotton. “Go back to work, you fucking slut. Think about my dick and what I’m going to do to you with it.”

Brock shuts his eyes, because that is exactly what he’s going to be doing for the rest of the day. If he manages to get back to his office in one piece, that is, and isn’t required to operate any heavy machinery or firearms for a few hours.

Jack gives him a shove toward the door. It opens with a pull, because Brock hadn’t thought to lock it. He sticks his head out to check for anyone watching, but it doesn’t much matter at this point. It’ll be obvious to anyone with a sense of smell or a working set of eyes what he’s been up to. Still, he makes an effort to square up his shoulders and clear his throat before stepping gingerly into the hall.

He lets the door swing shut behind him, Jack’s gaze blazing on the back of his neck.

~*~

Brock spits and grumbles and throws elbows about it, but Jack sleeps curled around him from behind that night, curved like a parenthese with his arm locked over Brock’s stomach. His cock is still partially hard, half inside Brock, the knot a firm swell that vibrates like a battery-operated dildo with Jack’s snoring. It’s a weird feeling, too intimate, slickened and raw and warm between them. Jack’s hand is curled, loose with sleep, against Brock’s chest. His elbow rises and falls on each breath Brock takes.

Brock doesn’t fall asleep right away, despite how tired he is, and despite how Jack’s apartment is quieter than his own, farther from traffic, the mattress more comfortable. Brock had been conscripted into hauling it in here months ago, the two of them wrestling it up six flights of stairs because the freight elevator had been crammed full of an old lady and her three transient china cabinets. He’d done it for pizza and a beer, the two of them still circling one another at that point like hungry dogs, each wary of making the first move. They’d watched a movie after, he’s pretty sure, sprawled on the couch with three careful feet between them. Jack had made a joke about trying out the new bed; Brock had laughed and made one back. Nothing happened.

Nothing happened until weeks later, both of them sauced up and high on team spirit in Brock’s truck after a Giants game, when Jack had leaned in with his hand braced on the seat over Brock’s shoulder, head lowered deep into Brock’s space, reeking of sweat and beer, and said, “Kiss me.” And Brock had obeyed.

Jack. Brock’s baby daddy. Spooning him in bed after a marathon fuck and takeout dinner. Warm with the ripeness of Thai and sex musk, nose buried in the nape of Brock’s neck. His arms huge like death, competent hands and a perfect ass.

Brock shuts his eyes and turns his face into the pillow. There’s no making contingencies for this clusterfuck, he thinks. It’s all shaping up into something too ugly to name.

~*~

The next night they spend camped in Oregon, three pup tents to six STRIKE agents. It’s bitterly cold. The op is low-profile, camouflage and night goggles all the way, so they can’t even light a fire. It’s nothing at all like the boyscout camping trips Brock used to take when he was a kid, and a lot more like the third week of SEALS training, hypothermic and bloody in the middle of BF, Egypt, although the MREs are better this time around.

He’s wary at first about assigning tents, because like fuck is he going to get into a tiny nylon coffin with Jack in front of the entire team, but Jack doesn’t bat an eye when he’s paired with Graham. Brock takes Mulroy and they sleep head to feet like sardines, both of them so bundled up in thermal gear they can hardly move. The team’s out by 0415, and everything goes to plan until, two hours of hiking later, Graham gets shot in the head. It’s a clean through-and-through, blood and brains spraying the snow and a bunch of trees and Fletcher.

It gets nasty after that. Dark figures in camo and masks emerge from between the trees, darting in with the lethal precision of a tactical ambush. Brock gut-shoots one combatant and cuts another’s throat, throws a third in the path of Mulroy’s bootknife. It doesn’t take long to realize they’re outgunned. By the time Brock sees Holt go down with three bullets in the chest, it’s clear they’re fucked. Crouched behind a fallen tree with Mulroy at his side, Brock throws radio silence to the wind and calls for emergency evac. He has to repeat himself over a burst of gunfire and a scream that sounds like Fletcher, but Command confirms a chopper en route and orders retreat.

They make a break for it with Fletcher slung into a fireman’s carry over Jack’s shoulder, Brock covering their six with intermittent sprays of automatic fire, his night goggles all but useless in the orange glow and long shadows of oncoming dawn.

Ten minutes later, when they’ve hit open ground and Brock is fairly certain no one’s in pursuit, he calls a stop to assess injuries. Mulroy’s head is bleeding sluggishly, but her eyes are clear. When Jack bends to put Fletcher down, he grunts under his breath, and Brock nearly drops his gun. He knows that sound.

“Where is it?” he demands, yanking his goggles off his head and switching on his Maglight.

Jack bares his teeth, unzipping his jacket. “Left side.” When he rips open the velcro on his flak vest, Brock can see blood soaking his shirt and pants, way too much of it. Jack folds his hands over his belly at the edge of the vest, grimacing.

“Did you just run a mile with a fucking bullet in your guts?” Brock snaps, already pulling his pack off his back and tearing it open to find first aid supplies. “Mulroy, check Fletcher.”

“Well, I thought about calling a timeout…” Jack breaks off into gasp, and Brock lunges for him as he sinks toward the ground.

The SHIELD chopper arrives twenty minutes later, _whop-whopping_ in from the direction of the rising sun, descending in a hurricane of downdraft and noise. STRIKE Sigma leap out, armed to the teeth, and Brock points them in the direction of the forest bloodbath and their dead colleagues, makes a cutting motion in the air by his own ear and shouts “Bad intel!” Three EMTs start bundling what remains of Brock’s team onto gurneys and into the chopper. They lift off less than two minutes after setting down.

Brock drops into a seat and braces himself as the chopper banks hard, his eyes pinned on where the paramedics are slicing off Jack’s ruined gear and swabbing away blood with handfuls of gauze. He can’t hear what they’re saying over the noise, but he can see the way Jack’s eyes are unfocused, his head lolling. Brock wants to get on his knees beside the stretcher, wants to reach out and touch Jack’s pale face, but he stays right where he is. Doesn’t look away for a second.

~*~

Fletcher survives his injuries, with caveats. A machete to the spine will do that. Brock goes to visit him in Medical the next day. He’s still in an induced coma, intubated and hooked up to a maze of IV bags, pale as a corpse. Brock squeezes his shoulder anyway, mutters, “You’ll be fine, kid,” even if it’s not really true.

Jack is in the next room over, medicated but not sleeping. His eyes track Brock’s approach without focusing quite right, lids half-mast. “Hey.” Brock drags a chair up to the side of his bed, the legs clattering on the tile floor. “How’s the scratch, you fuckin’ pussy?”

Jack spends a second squinting, watching Brock sit down. “‘s just a flesh wound,” he says finally. His voice is rough, dry from three hours under anesthesia the day before and whatever they’ve given him since. Brock’s well aware of Jack’s latent morphine addiction and the grief it’s given SHIELD Medical over the years.

Brock snorts, shaking his head. “You’re a barrel of laughs.”

Jack takes a long second looking him up and down, mouth set like he’s considering saying something but can’t quite get it right. Eventually, he grunts, “Get me some water.” Brock does, and he’s ready to hold the cup and put the straw in Jack’s mouth too, but Jack takes it away from him with a hand that’s only a little shaky and does it himself. Brock sits back down and eyes the stretch of gauze around Jack’s middle.

“You’re fuckin’ lucky it missed the important shit.” He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his mouth. It had been close, the bullet tearing right through every last layer of thick abdominal muscle Jack had to spare, bloody as hell and twice as painful from the look of it, but non-fatal once the doctors spent a few hours stitching him back together. Brock’s skin crawls at the thought of just how close it had been.

“Still,” he says, after he’s paused an incriminatingly long moment. “Sounds like you’ll be out of commision for a while.” He meets Jack’s squint over the rim of the cup. “Probably won’t release you from Medical for another week, another one after that in bed at home…” He grins, rueful. “You’re going to be one useless motherfucker.”

Jack lowers the cup and, carefully, wincing, stretches out his arm to put it back on the side table. He’s got that look again, like he’s trying to figure out how to talk. Brock waits to see what he’ll say, what off-color joke or dismissal is going to come out of his mouth. But instead, Jack clears his throat and rasps, mouth crooked, “Good thing I’ve got you to look after me, isn’t it?”

~*~

The doctors release Jack into Brock’s care two days later, which is a fucking joke, because Jack won’t even let Brock open the car door for him, much less push his wheelchair or carry his things. Jack’s got a duffel with his off-base gear on his lap, and a grim set to his jaw as though every roll of the chair’s wheels is plucking his stitches like a banjo string.

Brock pretends not to notice, walking ahead with as wide a gait as he can manage, clearing a path. He’s moving faster than he needs to probably, but he’d been sure a couple nurses were giving him narrow looks while Jack was checking out. It had made Brock itchy for escape, his skin crawling with the sensation of every eye on him. He’s got a baggy windbreaker on, zipped to the neck, but he still feels like a fucking spectacle, his secrecy as subtle as a baseball bat to the face.

Getting into the car isn’t nearly as big of a fiasco as Brock had been dreading; Jack levers himself out of the wheelchair with hardly a grimace and slides into the passenger seat, one arm bent up over his head to keep his side flat, his t-shirt stretched tight over his ribs, cuff frayed where it strains at his bicep. Brock feels a glow of heat prickle his face. He abandons Jack in the car to take the wheelchair back inside.

Once they get under way, Jack insists on going back to his own apartment, which Brock doesn’t protest too hard. Better for Jack to bleed all over his own goddamn sheets than Brock’s. They take the elevator up, and Jack curls his lip when Brock tries to take his bag to look for the keys. He gets them out himself, lets them into the cold stale air of the apartment. There’s half-eaten food on the kitchen counter, fuzzy with mold, and a half-drunk beer with dead flies stuck to the mouth of the bottle. The sink is stacked with dirty dishes. There’s laundry on the floor. It smells like the garbage was overdue before Jack even left.

Jack looks around, nodding, and slings his bag into a corner. He says, “Get this shit cleaned up.”

Brock pulls up short with one shoe off, but Jack’s already leaving the kitchen, walking slow, reaching up under his shirt to touch gingerly at his bandages. Brock opens his mouth to say, “I don’t fuckin’ think so!” but the slope of Jack’s shoulders is…

Brock hesitates too long. He shuts his mouth and kicks off his other shoe. It’s just a few goddamn dishes, he can handle it. He’s a fucking grown up.

~*~

When he’s done, he takes a shower and dries off perfunctorily, messily. He didn’t bring any clean clothes, and his dirty ones smell like week-old spaghetti, so he goes to Jack’s bedroom with a towel on and nothing else. The door isn’t shut, and Jack is passed out face-down on top of the blankets, stripped to his boxers. Brock pauses in the doorway a second to watch him, the way his big hands twitch against the sheets, the slow widening of his back with each breath. Jack snores-- he’s had his nose broken too often not to-- but he’s not snoring now. Just breathing deep and easy, soft.

Brock shucks his towel on the floor and gets up on the bed. Then he goes back and picks up the towel and folds it and puts it on a chair. Jack comes half awake when Brock starts pulling the blankets out from under him, lifting his head. He needs a shower too, he’s greasy and smells like hospital, but Brock doesn’t say so. He says, “Hey,” and, “Move over.”

Jack grunts and ignores him, putting his head back down, but Brock manages to get under the covers anyway. One of Jack’s arms flops over him, punctuated with a low grunt of pain, and Jack's hand gropes over his stomach, squeezing the firm swollen curve of it.

“Momma,”Jack mumbles into the bed.

Brock doesn't say a goddamn word.

~*~

“Want a cat?”

Brock looks at Jack over his breakfast, which is stale Wheaties and a chocolate-flavoured protein shake, and laughs. Then he sees that Jack isn’t laughing, and stops. “What? Are you joking?”

Jack shrugs, flipping bacon in the pan with a fork. He sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks grease off it. “Just a question.”

Brock narrows his eyes. “Neither of us have time for a cat. It’d shit all over the place, probably piss in the bed.” He shakes his head, lifting a spoonful of cereal. “I don’t know anything about cats.”

“Read a book, dipshit,” Jack says. He gets a plate down out of the cupboard, hardly wincing at the stretch. He’s shirtless, in boxers and socks. The bruising around his ribs has faded to a sullen yellow and green tinge, and the bandages came off two days ago. The stitches are coming out in another three. It looks rough, sore, sharply dramatic against the muscle of his belly.

Jack starts shoveling bacon onto the plate. “How hard could it be? Clean the litterbox, feed it every once in a while, leave out water.” He smacks the plate down and pushes it toward Brock. “Don’t even need to leave water, it’ll drink out of the toilet.”

Brock pushes the plate right back. “Yeah, sure. And when we take off for two weeks to Bolivia? Or fuckin’ Russia?”

Jack crooks a lopsided grin. He’s strangely loose this morning, almost buoyant, had shaved around a smile, whistled in the shower while Brock brushed his teeth. It’s off-putting.

“Besides,” Brock says, and takes a drink of his shake. His throat’s a little tight, and he has to swallow twice. “We can’t even take care of--” He dips his chin at himself. “Of this. Of this thing. We can’t--”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me.” Jack ducks out of the kitchen, dripping fork still in hand, and comes back with a handful of papers, which he drops on the counter in front of Bock. “You’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning.”

The chocolate taste in Brock’s mouth goes ashy. Slowly, he puts down his shake. “That’s my signature,” he says, looking at the paperwork he’d never gotten around to filling out. The sharp jagged line of his name scrawled in the box marked X. A pink notecard with a date and time stapled to the front. Tomorrow’s date. Nine a.m.

“I’ve had it down pat for years.” Jack opens the fridge and bends over to dig in the crisper drawer. “Rebooked your schedule for the next couple weeks, too.”

Brock picks up the stack of papers. His hands feel cold, and his chest. “Where did you get these?” His voice comes out hoarse, and he clears his throat, swallows again.

“Swung by your place on the way back from the doctor the other day.” Jack shuts the fridge and puts a banana in front of Brock. “Eat some goddamn fruit, you’re going to get scurvy.”

Brock flips through the sheets. Time off for medical leave, doctor’s notes, insurance forms… The cold in his chest starts to spread, crawling up his spine.

“Say thank you, asshole.”

Brock looks up at Jack, the way he’s braced against the counter with both hands, eyes fixed on Brock. The stark black barbed-wire shadow of his stitches. The slick of his hair. “Thank you,” Brock says.

Jack nods. “Welcome.” He leans over the counter and kisses Brock, loud and obnoxious, on one cheek, follows it with a sharp pat with the palm of his hand. “Eat your fuckin’ Wheaties.”

~*~

The clinic’s discreet, thank Christ. It’s owned and operated by SHIELD, tucked behind a physiotherapist and a credit union, and the tasteful white sign on the building says _Macmillan and Associates_ like some kind of swanky law firm. The parking lot is bordered in short hedges and bright flower beds and there are no crazed hordes of pro-lifers chanting on the sidewalk. It’s almost a disappointment; Brock could go for a good bloodbath.

Jack shuts off the truck and gets out, pocketing the keys. He saunters around the hood and fishes in his pocket for a cigarette. Brock sits in the passenger seat and watches him light it. There’s watery sunlight on Jack’s gelled hair and his shoulders. The thick silver bracelet on his wrist glints when he takes the cigarette out of his mouth and squints at Brock, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth. Brock sees his lips say, “Coming?”

At the door of the clinic, Jack takes a last draw on his cigarette and flicks it away into the manicured bushes. He grabs the door handle before Brock can reach for it, but drops back to Brock’s eight to let him enter first. Standard infiltration formation. Brock’s neck prickles with the familiarity.

The lobby’s about what he expected; glass and white and delicate artsy shit on the walls, a water feature in the corner. He makes straight for the receptionist and drums his palms on the counter while she’s still turning in her chair to greet him.

“Morning,” he says. “Rumlow, Brock. Got an appointment.”

She blinks, startled, her smile faltering. “Good morning, Mr. Rumlow, how are you today?”

“How the fuck do you think I am?”

Jack’s hand lands on his shoulder, a grip as heavy as it is subtle. “Hey, now.” He pulls Brock backward, steps between him and the counter. Smiles at the receptionist. “Don’t mind him, he hasn't had his coffee yet.” It comes out in a loose drawl, warm and easy, and Brock doesn't miss the way the receptionist’s eyes skate quickly across the breadth of Jack’s chest, catch on the open vee of his shirt collar.

She smiles back, professional but friendly. “Well, that's good, no liquids allowed.” She gathers a clipboard and pen and passes them across the desk to Jack, but her eyes are on Brock when she say, “Fill out this information and bring it back when you're done. Can I offer you any refreshments while you wait?”

“No liquids,” Brock growls.

Jack grabs his wrist and gives it a squeeze that grinds bone. “We’re fine, thanks.”

They sit in the ergonomic waiting room chairs under a speaker that's playing soft jazz, and Jack fills out the forms with one precise hand, the other locked on Brock’s knee to keep it from bouncing.

“You’ve never tested positive for syphilis or gonorrhea, have you?” he asks after a minute, smirking.

Brock flares his nostrils. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I’ll put that down as a no.”

Halfway through the last page, Jack finally hands it over so Brock can fill in his family medical history and sign his signature. “Don't want to do it yourself?” Brock asks, just the wrong side of snide.

“Don't be a lazy cunt.” Jack picks up a magazine from the table and spreads it open on his lap.

Brock notices, flipping back through the form, that not only has Jack apparently memorized Brock’s social security number, he’s also written his own name and phone number in the emergency contact and next of kin blanks. Something hot and shivering unfurls behind Brock’s ribs, something he doesn't want to put a name to. He takes the clipboard back to the front desk.

Five minutes later, they're called into an exam room where a smiling doctor in her forties shakes their hands and introduces herself as Meredith Macmillan.

“Mr. Rumlow, I assume,” she says, glancing at his stomach. “And…?”

“Jack Rollins.” Jack gives her extended hand a firm pump.

“He's the asshole who got me into this mess,” Brock mutters.

“Ah, yes.” Dr. Macmillan chuckles. “I hear it does generally take two.” She indicates a pair of leather chairs in the corner and they sit, Brock rigid on the edge of his seat, Jack relaxed with his legs wide. “I’m sure you’ve read the information packet that came with your appointment confirmation, but I’ll reiterate the most important parts.”

As a matter of fact, Brock has not read any such thing, didn't even know it existed. He slants a glance at Jack, but Jack is looking at Macmillan, his hands steepled casually on his chest.

“The procedure itself will take about an hour, but since you've opted for general anaesthetic, the pre-op and recovery will lengthen your visit to three.” She stops, because Brock has opened his mouth to interrupt.

“Sorry, I opted for what?”

She frowns. “General anesthetic. Local was an option, but since you're further along in your pregnancy, general was recommended, and indicated on your form.”

Brock looks more pointedly at Jack this time. Jack meets his eyes, shrugs. “You know how you get in surgery. Easier just to knock you out.”

Brock stares at him. The slant to Jack’s mouth, the silent dare banked beneath his gaze, it puts Brock’s hackles up. The shivering thing behind his ribs knots tighter.

“If you'd prefer to choose local instead…” Macmillan trails off.

A long moment passes, Brock’s eyes locked with Jack’s. His heart is hammering. Finally Jack lifts a brow, a wordless _Answer the lady_.

Slowly, Brock takes a breath. “No,” he says. He turns back to Macmillan. “No, general’s fine.”

She glances between them, brow wrinkled.  “All right.”

It's pretty standard after that, a rundown of the surgical procedure itself, after-effects, things to watch for. She gives him a pair of small white pills to dissolve under his tongue, draws a vial of blood, does a brief but thorough abdominal exam. All the kinds of thing a nurse should be doing, Brock's pretty sure, but never let it be said SHIELD’s money can't buy white from rice.

As she hands him the paper gown, she glances at Jack over his shoulder and says, “Mr. Rollins, could I ask you to leave the room for a moment? Just a matter of policy.”

Jack obeys, rising with a languid grace that nonetheless ratchets Brock's pulse up another notch. His gaze lingers on Brock all the way until he steps out into the hall and pulls the door shut after himself.

There's a beat of silence as Brock narrows his eyes at Macmillan, sizing her up. This is no matter of policy, if the pinched expression on her face is any indication.  “What?” he demands, pre-empting her.

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. Her fingers clench at the stethoscope hanging around her neck. “Mr. Rumlow… I need to know that you are agreeing to this procedure of your own volition.”

Brock makes a disgusted sound. “Jesus, what is it with doctors,” he snaps. “Lady, I want this thing out of me more than anyone. Do I look like I've been dragged in here kicking and screaming?”

She lifts her chin, going steely in the face of his irritation. “Honestly, yes. Some amount of nervousness is to be expected, but you seem very on edge. Your… partner has clearly made a number of medical decisions on your behalf without your knowledge. I'm obliged to ask--”

“So you've asked.” Brock takes a step toward her. It's not a nice move; he knows exactly how intimidating he is, especially to a small woman alone in a room with him, and normally he'd handle this situation differently, crack a joke and redirect her concern, but the shivering thing has grown to a full-fledged shake he's only just managing to swallow down, and if he tries to smile right now, he’s sure she'll see it lurking behind his teeth. He just wants this over with. “And I'm telling you that I want this done, and I want it done now. No more bullshit. I ain't got time for your social services spiel. “

She holds his stare, jaw set. It's a good standoff, and if Brock hadn't spent decades facing down worse than her on a regular basis and twice on the weekends, she might have knocked a chink in his armor. But he has, and she doesn't.

“Okay,” she says at last, nodding. “Glad to hear it. Put on the gown and we’ll get you prepped for anaesthetic.”

After she leaves, Jack comes back in, frowning. “What was that about?”

Brock is in the process of unbuttoning his pants. He shakes his head, looking down at his socked feet. “Financial stuff. SHIELD insurance, confidential shit. You know the drill.”

~*~

Brock wakes, for the first time, alone in a dim room, warm and spinning and distant from his body. He can't move his legs, his eyes don't want to stay open, and he nearly panics, but he falls asleep again before he can.

The second time, he's groggy and it's hard to focus on anything beyond the cool gray and white of the nearest wall. He reaches clumsily for it, to check if it's warm or soft, to investigate its width and breadth. He hears Jack say, "Hey," and take his hand, tangle their fingers together. He falls asleep again.

The third time, he's on his feet and leaning against Jack's shoulder when he opens his eyes. The dissonance startles him and he jerks, reeling, but Jack holds him steady with an arm at his waist. "You're fine," he murmurs.

Brock's neck swoops, loose, his vision patchy and too bright, but he registers vaguely that they're standing at the front counter. Jack is signing something. The receptionist is watching Brock with an indulgent smile, her brows neatly stenciled and her lipstick hot red. Brock turns his face into Jack's shoulder. He doesn't want her looking at him.

They go outside; they get in the truck; they pull out of the parking lot. Brock's head lolls against the cold window. "Where are we going?" he asks. "I feel wet."

"Home," says Jack. "Wet? Like blood?"

For a long second, Brock thinks about that. His stomach hurts. It feels like someone's crammed fistfuls of soaked gauze into his guts, sloppily packed with broken glass. "No. Just..." He puts a hand on his belly. It's flat. He's wearing his own clothes. "Did you see it?"

"See what?"

They turn a corner, change lanes, stop at a light. Brock shuts his eyes, feels his limbs six miles away apiece.

"The baby?" Jack says at last. "No, Brock, I didn't see it."

Brock puts his head back against the window.

Home is Jack's apartment, six flights up in the elevator, Jack's hand on his wrist while he unlocks the door. Brock goes straight for the bathroom, where he discovers that the wet is blood, but not a lot. It's been soaked up by a pad wedged into his boxers. He sits on the toilet staring at it, remembering in fits and snatches that a nurse had helped him dress, had given him some pills, had told him things he was supposed to pay attention to.

He flushes the toilet and goes back into the living room. Jack is on the couch with the TV on. Brock says, "I don't feel right."

"Go to bed, babe." Jack doesn't look at him. He's drinking a beer.

"I don't..." Brock sways, grabbing the back of the couch.

Jack tilts his head, looking up at Brock steadily. His stubble is sharp at the edges of his jaw, his hair a little too long. "They gave you T3s."

Brock groans. His joints feel cold. "I'm allergic to codeine, didn't you write that down?"

"You'll be fine." Jack rolls the beer against his leg. "It's not much of an allergy."

Jack’s right. It makes him antsy, fucks with his head, but it won't hurt him. "I'm going to bed," he says eventually. "Do you..." He stops. Trembles, swallows. "Do you want to come with me?"

Jack smirks. "When the game's over, maybe."

Brock nods. The bedroom is cool and dark, the sheets rumpled and the blankets messy. He crawls into the middle of the bed with all his clothes on. He shuts his eyes.

~*~

Jack's stitches come out two days after. He's gone an hour and comes back with sunglasses on and a shark grin. Brock meets him on the way to the kitchen. The way Jack approaches him, taking up the whole hallway, heavy on his feet, makes Brock's face flush. A spike of adrenaline snaps in his veins. He tips up his chin. “That was fast.”

"Wanna see?" Jack’s close enough that Brock can smell him strong and salty, delicious.

Brock's seen stitch scars before, has his own fair share of them, but he nods. Jack hikes up the edge of his shirt, showing off the row of raw pink dots like tiny teeth marks in the dip of his hip. He looks at Brock over the top of his glasses. "Wanna touch it?"

Brock snorts, mutters, "Jackass," but he reaches out anyway, presses two fingers to the scar. It's long and jagged, bookended down the length by eight matching ligature marks. Brock rubs his thumb over it. It's hot with blood under the surface, the muscle jumping. Jack takes his hand and presses it flat. Drags it slowly to the front of his jeans, where his cock is starting to push at the zipper. "Touch it," he murmurs.

Brock hisses between his teeth, curling his fingers around the thick length. His own cock throbs in his sweatpants, the spasm of it deep and sharp. Jack tosses aside his sunglasses, pushes him back until Brock hits the wall, and ducks to kiss him. His tongue curls into Brock's mouth, licks him open. He squeezes Brock's hand around his cock.

"You want it?" He presses his groin against Brock's, rubs up on him hard and nasty.

Brock groans, because yeah, he wants it. He wants Jack over top of him, big and solid and strong, pinning him, rocking into him, holding his wrists together.

"Yeah," he says. "But--"

"Uh uh." Jack pulls him off the wall, starts walking him backwards toward the bedroom. "Don't give me any shit. Not today."

"We can't fuck for two weeks." Brock digs his heels in, but Jack spins him around, twists his arm up and keeps pushing. Brock stumbles, looking over his shoulder. "I don't need a fucking infection, asshole."

"You'll be fine," Jack says. "You've got a strong immune system."

"That's not--"

Brock breaks off with a gasp when Jack manhandles him through the bedroom door and crowds him from behind, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. His skin erupts with goosebumps when Jack finds the bite, gets his teeth in it. His legs give out, and Jack drops him face-first onto the bed, climbs up on top of him.

Brock pants into the blankets, his stomach twisting and sore, his dick jumping. "I'm serious," he says over his shoulder. "Fuck off."

"I'm serious too." Jack grinds against his ass. From the feel of it, his knot's already swelling. Brock groans, rocking back. He makes a fist in the sheet and buries his face.

Jack sits up long enough to peel Brock's sweats down past his ass, hold his cheeks open with both thumbs and spit between them. It lands hot and slick on Brock's tender hole, slipping inside. It's an awful familiar feeling; he'd still been bleeding a bit this morning. He took an aspirin a couple hours ago, but it's wearing off now.

When Jack undoes his zipper and presses his cock up against Brock's hole, a cramp tightens like a fist in Brock's stomach. He cringes into the bed, but the thick seasick pain of Jack pushing inside him on another mouthful of spit isn't enough to override the equally deep shock of pleasure at being penetrated. He groans against the sheets, arching his back.

"Yeah, there you go." Jack laughs above him, planting one big hand between Brock's shoulder blades. "That's a good boy."

When Jack starts thrusting, Brock thinks he might die. His belly cramps and his legs shake, but his cock is hard against the mattress, jerking with every pump of Jack's hips. He comes once without a hand on him, chewing a mouthful of bedding to keep from shouting, and again when Jack hitches his ass up into the air and forces his knot inside. It hurts, goddamn does it hurt, too dry and too tight and too big. But Jack gets it in, and Brock comes all over it in the same moment, head hanging between his shoulders, teeth clenched.

Jack comes not long after, fingers tight in Brock's hair, jerking into him and snarling like a big animal over a kill. Brock gasps beneath him, wincing. The receding endorphins have left a clear path for pain to sizzle back along all his nerves. Jack lowers overtop him, blankets him, chest heaving against Brock's back. He puts his mouth on the nape of Brock's neck. "Baby," he murmurs.

He pulls out a while later, when Brock has nearly fallen asleep. His palm lands sharp on Brock's sore ass, two fingers dipping into the mess of jizz in the middle. "Go get yourself cleaned up," he says. "I'll start dinner.”

Brock listens to his footsteps leave the bedroom, and the fridge open and shut. A minute later, the smell of frying bacon wafts down the hall. Brock doesn't get up. He lies very still for a long time, one arm curled beneath himself, across the flat expanse of his empty belly, counting his heartbeats.

~*~

The next day, Jack brings home a kitten.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jack coerces Brock into unsafe sex, which results in pregnancy; Brock wants to abort and Jack emotionally manipulates him into holding off; at one point Jack inflicts deliberate injuries on Brock with the intention of causing a miscarriage; there is a strong theme of unequal and controlling power dynamics; in the end, Brock goes through with the abortion, which he may or may not want at that point, due to pressure from Jack; they have medically inadvisable sex very shortly after the abortion, against Brock's wishes.


End file.
